We used to have some Marrans and, as Lady of Leisure says, they are good layers producing lovely dark brown eggs. We have had Light Sussex too, which are also great layers (large eggs too) and can be used as eating birds as well.

funnily enough we have just been talking about getting chickens.....we've been here 9 months now and the dogs have settled and know their territory so we've been talking about what to get next (previous owner had donkies). I did have this idea to get Alpacas but I never did like spitting so that's put me off a bit and although I knit I think it would be a while before I could progress to shearing and producing my own wool. Anyhow, I'm going to look up the site Amber mentions and do more research! I would prefer my chickens to roam free but there must be foxes around here even though I have never seen any....so I guess they would need fencing in (at least at night) with a proper chicken shed and laying area. K.

@ Blakevine: Did you buy your (donkey) farm off Dutch people by any chance?

Indeed, there are quite some foxes around, especially around this time of year - end of winter - when they rummage round around houses to nourish their offspring. My neighbour spotted one this morning chasing blackbirds that were eating rotting apples in her yard. I've seen them after sunset a few times and seen their footprints in the snow (like dogs' but in a straight line).

The friends we are going to keep the chichens with have had freerange chickens before and they locked them up for the night only. Can you keep me informed of developments at your end as well? Maybe we could learn from each other.

Hi Myriam - yes we did....I'll pm you about that. As far as the foxes go, we used to see them regularly in our "garden" in England and I know what you mean about the straight tracks. My understanding is that they are very territorial; I'll keep a look out. I'm learning about chickens as we have not had them before although my mother did. Do you know if we can buy them locally; something else I need to investigate. I'm all for learning with each other so that sounds good to me. K.

Our chickens [hens really] have a purpose built house [not expensive ]and they go to bed every night in it , we close the hen house door each night ( its in the barn at the moment out of the bad winter weather) but they are free to roam all day, the barn is never closed . the house is stood on concrete when inside and out so the foxes cannot dig underneath.. Marj

_________________A friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart:

We've got our chickens contained as we lost 6 free ranging hens to the fox where we lived previously. Now they have a run, which was fine when we had just the Light Sussex but as they died off I bought some Marrans (I now think they're actually Marran cross as the eggs are not as dark brown as they should be) and these girls insisted on flying over the fence every morning. I though it lovely to see them strutting around, until my garden started to get seriously hen pecked (literally!) - that included all the growing vegetables too so I had to clip their wings, although I left one and she kept the garden clean of slugs and snails without causing too much damage.

These hens have not stopped laying for the last two years, although production goes down a lot in the winter - maybe only one or two eggs a day from 4 hens, but that's plenty for just the two or us.